Passion for great text boosts economy

Text messaging is no longer just an obsession among teens and 20-somethings - about 4 billion messages were sent last financial year, an average of 294 messages for each of the country's 14.3 million mobile phone users.

The Telecommunications Performance Report 2003, tabled in Parliament yesterday, and commissioned by the Australian Communications Authority, said mobile phones - specifically text messaging - were driving massive revenue growth, contributing more than $5 billion to the economy.

Fifty-seven per cent of households and 40 per cent of small businesses now use SMS.

Almost 72 per cent of the population now uses a mobile phone, with three out of four new subscribers opting for a pre-paid service.

The authority's acting chairman, Dr Bob Horton, said: "Pre-paid services have been particularly popular among young people because they offer an inexpensive way to enter the market without the need for the credit worthiness checks."

While it was only last year that the number of mobile phone services overtook the number of fixed lines, there are now almost 3 million more mobiles than fixed services.

While consumers were satisfied overall with the performance of the mobile networks, technical performance and coverage still rated low to very low.

According to the report, the number of internet subscribers had also passed 5 million during the year, with more than 500,000 on broadband, double the number last year.

Less positive were the performances of Telstra and Optus in rectifying faults on fixed lines.

The authority had questioned both carriers about their declining performances after Telstra's fixed fault rate fell to 86 per cent in urban areas, compared with 93 per cent in rural areas and 94 per cent in remote regions.

The performance rate of Optus fell even further, from 92 per cent earlier in the financial year to 87 per cent by the end of it.

"We have asked Optus to advise us on the reasons for this significant decline in performance," Dr Horton said.

The number of faults reported on both networks was also up, with Optus reporting 10.5 per cent more faults fixed and Telstra 1.2 per cent more. As for the big economic picture, Dr Horton said the economy in 2003 was more than $12 billion better off as a result of the deregulation of the industry six years ago.

Households were also said to be about $5.7 billion better off as a result of cheaper phone calls and online services such as internet banking.